


Solomon's Seal

by Schemilix



Series: Blood and Gold [1]
Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: Gen, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:40:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schemilix/pseuds/Schemilix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A priest is not a warrior is not a man is not a priest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solomon's Seal

 ”Sanctuary - Gods spit on you - sanctuary!” 

 Loffrey planted his feet in the doorway as the men with the sigil of Ordallia approached. Cowed not by the threat of divine vengeance - they too fought as if it were the Gods’ Will - they still slowed to see that the man in priest’s robes held a sword.

 It was not a small sword.

 His hands on Havemercy were firm, but his heart was not. These men with violence in their hearts were still men. As many as they had doubtless slain, the Gods beat in their breasts.  

 ”Repent! Leave this place!” Loffrey shouted to them. Behind him, the men and women that were his flock drew together, fearful. They trusted him to fight Humes as he fought sin. That he had their trust in his blade!

 The Ordallians reached for their swords, still reluctant. 

 But a greying priest in blue robes was convincing no-one. They advanced towards the door to claim this place. His control was imperfect - already the blade stuttered with power shivering through the magicite. 

 From years of training his voice was iron-hard when he called:

 ”In the name of the Gods - you will not take them!”

 The first man’s armour caved in like a crab’s shell, tearing at the flesh underneath. Loffrey saw blood and, shouting wordlessly, struck again with the fury of the Gods.

\---- 

 They lay in the dust. Blood, so much of it, soaking the Earth. She drank it greedily, mocking him. The door was unbreached. Loffrey marked his chest with the Rood and dropped his head, wheezing for breath. 

 That power he had trained for was not one he had ever intended to use. But his flock was safe.

 Of course they knew, they came. Bloodhounds, here not for punishing a priest for wielding an edged killing-weapon, no, but for utilising him. Three armed men felled by a priest scarcely taller than a woman. They can’t have known that those robes hid muscle that could lift a greatsword.

 ”Would you not make a good Templar, with rosary and blade?”

 He would have to make a good Templar. It was better than being a conscript. 

\----

 The chocobo’s claws were his welcome, but he was spared. Perhaps it was penance for his sin, or merely the Gods marking him as a warrior. Did they punish him as a stray, or welcome him to his new purpose? 

 Half his ear was gone, either way. It was through the blood-haze in his right eye that he saw Vormav. The voice - though he could hardly see, he remembered the voice next they met, like a lion it was more distinctive than his face.

 So many years eaten by the war. Fifty of Ivalice’s, fifty each of many Humes. Between them, millenia, an abyss of lost time for Zomal to devour.

 Not the kind of war that simply ended. There were scars - blacksmiths with cold forges, brigands with no purpose, Templars without enemies. Little more than armoured monks to threaten heretics with. Loffrey should have enjoyed that, but he belonged to battle now. It was written in him like a grimoire with every scar.

 He longed for it. In the absence of tang and steel, he felt empty.

  _Ah - that is untrue,_  he thought. He had always felt empty. War was simply the only thing loud enough to fill the void with echoes. 

\----

  _He prays still. He thinks he is confusing their names. He loses count of the repetitions when he hears footsteps, sees violet robes through the doorway._

_”Vormav - I was not born for this - I have gone astray - in bloodshed - it has sickened me - “_

_”Get a hold of yourself, sentimental fool.”_

_Loffrey falls silent, clawing at his skin. Blood for Her, he tells himself. He is a vessel, nothing more. Once filled with a God’s word, then the fury of the Divine Blade and now - now it feels only like blood, blood and the echo of that voice. In Her name or not, he knows he would follow that voice anywhere._


End file.
